


restless nights and quiet conversations

by FyreLily



Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, How Do I Tag, I'm Bad At Tagging, James Ironwood (mentioned) - Freeform, Neck injury, Penny Polendina (mentioned) - Freeform, Pietro Polendina (mentioned) - Freeform, Pyrrha Nikos (mentioned) - Freeform, bc i was rushing, death mention, huh i think i just left qrow out of this one, i also left out ozpin, i'm probably not gonna actually write about it but RWBYJNORQP kicking ironwood's ass, idk if this is angst or slight angst but im being careful, oscar and ren have a nice short talk, oscar's backstory y'all, tell me if i forgot any tags, this is kind of rushed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:00:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27330880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FyreLily/pseuds/FyreLily
Summary: After Oscar is rescued from the freezing tundra, he is told to sleep while everyone else stays up a bit more to talk and plan. So, Oscar does the most logical thing: he stays up and listens in.---Y'all already know that I suck at summaries (and titles, can you tell?). Oscar gets rescued, Ren gets angry, and the two have a nice talk.
Relationships: Jaune Arc & Lie Ren & Nora Valkyrie, Lie Ren/Nora Valkyrie, Oscar Pine & Lie Ren
Comments: 4
Kudos: 78





	restless nights and quiet conversations

**Author's Note:**

> hi there! i've been writing a lot about oscar recently. it's because i love him a lot he's my favorite. this is a bit rushed, and kind of shorter than i'd like it to be, but i'm happy with it. remember to read the tags, and enjoy!

Oscar is supposed to be asleep.

Evidently, he is not. 

And therefore, due to his lack of being in bed and asleep, he can hear the conversation that goes on in the room. 

Oscar and his friends are staying in the dwelling of Penny’s father, Pietro Polendina. Both Polendinas are out at the moment; Pietro is busy with some invention or amazing creation, while Penny is out destroying Grimm and helping the people of Mantle, careful to stay away from the keen eyes of the Atlas military. 

Oscar, having been rescued from the freezing tundra and whisked away in a flurry of hugs and scoldings was immediately forced into a hospital bed the moment they arrived at their destination. Nora looked ready to tie him to the bed to make sure he stayed.

Which, Oscar decided, is pretty fair, given his track record of going missing. That was, what? The third time he had gone missing? The fourth? Honestly, who’s even counting?

Well, apparently Nora is. Oscar is so glad to have Nora, but she can be… a lot sometimes. He still doesn’t like it when she calls him “Cute Boy Oz," but he'd never tell her that.  ~~ it reminds him of how he’s inevitably going to become Oz; there’s nothing they can do to stop it.  ~~

Oscar shakes the thoughts and memories out of his head. He blinks a couple of times, and then slips out of bed and just next to the door that leads to the room where everyone else is sitting in silence. Everyone else being team RWBY along with Jaune, Ren, and Nora, of course. He presses himself up against the door, trying to be as silent as possible.

“-sure that Watts is still in custody? I wouldn’t put it past Salem to have broken him out by now.” That’s Yang speaking, Oscar determines.

Ruby responds to her. “Yeah, we’re pretty sure. Salem hasn’t hacked anything since we captured him, and I’m sure we would’ve gotten  _ some  _ news by now if he had escaped.”

“Then again, it’s not like we know the info on the Atlesian government’s most high-priority prisoners anymore,” Blake says listlessly. 

They lapse into silence. She’s right. Oscar bites his lip as he waits for the conversation to continue. 

“Okay, yeah, this isn’t the best situation,” Jaune begins. “But it’s at least looking better than it did a few hours ago. We have Oscar back, remember? He’s not in danger anymore.”

Oscar smiles just a bit. On the other side of the door, Ren mutters something that Oscar can barely hear, let alone make out. 

Weiss sounds a bit hesitant. “What did you say?”

Ren speaks up, his voice louder than usual. “I said, who’s fault is it that he got lost in the first place?”

Oscar blinks. Surely he heard that wrong?

“No one’s? He ran off and now he’s back, that all there is to it,” Jaune states.

Oscar peers through the keyhole just in time to see Ren glance towards his leader with doubt in his eyes.

“Oh yeah?” Ren spits bitterly. “He was out in the snow for hours, without any aura. Alone. He still hasn’t even told us how he got there. It’s not like there isn’t blame to be going around,  _ Jaune. _ ”

The blonde boy blinks, startled. “Are you blaming me for-”

Ren throws his hands up in the air. “Maybe I am, maybe I’m not.”

“Ren, I know you don’t mean that,” Nora falters.

“Oh, like you would know.”

“Hey, that’s enough!” Ruby interjects. 

Ren turns to her. “Stay out of this. You aren’t part of our team”

Ruby breathes in sharply and steps back a bit.

Jaune’s head whips back to Ren. “What’s wrong with you right now? We’re all fine, and it’s no one's fault that Oscar went missing!”

“Oh? And what if it’s yours, huh? What if it’s mine?”  
  


Nora looks pleadingly at her teammate. “Lie…”

Oscar’s eyes widen. Did Nora seriously bring out the L-word? At a time like this?

Ren takes a step back, seeming to realize what he’s saying. He looks around with an agonized expression on his face, spelling out plainly “I didn’t mean it.” He shakes his head and turns toward the door where Oscar is listening in. 

The farm boy realizes that he won’t have enough time to make it back to the bed. He looks around rapidly and flings himself towards the wall just in time for the door to swing open and Ren to storm through. The door closes with a bang and Ren stops in the center of the room. He glances at the bed, and then towards Oscar. 

The 14 year old scratches his neck and smiles sheepishly. “Uh, hi Ren.”

Ren looks at him impassively for a moment, then sighs. “I assume that you heard all of that.”

Oscar nods slowly. “Uh, yeah…”

The two are silent for a moment. Finally, in a move that feels incredibly awkward to him, Oscar walks over to the bed and sits down, patting the space next to him. “Want to… talk about it?”

Ren raises an eyebrow, but sits down anyway. 

Oscar attempts to start a conversation. “So.... about what you said in there….” He trails off, unsure how to continue. 

Ren sighs again. “I... didn’t mean it. I know it wasn’t Jaune’s fault, I just…”

“Needed someone to blame?” Oscar offers.

Ren wrinkles his nose. “Something like that.”

The silence stretches on. 

Oscar fiddles around with his gloves. “Y’know, back when I lived on the farm, I used to go running off pretty often.”

Ren turns to Oscar, cocking his head to the side. He takes it as a sign to go on. 

“Yeah, I did. I had a couple spots on the property that I’d run off to after I was finished with my chores. There was a pond, and the daisy meadow… when I came back, my aunt would always scold me and say things like ‘Oscar! One day you’ll go missing and you’ll end up getting hurt, and what will I do then?’”

Oscar’s fists clench. “She… um, she wasn’t wrong.”

Ren’s eyes flash. “What do you mean?”

“One day, I was out in the meadow. It was kind of a… a rough day for me, so I guess I was radiating negative emotions or something…”

Sensing where the story is going, Ren stiffens. 

Oscar keeps going, talking faster now in an attempt to block out the memories and only speak facts. “I was just sitting there… and I was attacked by a grimm. I’m not sure what kind it was, I was too scared to tell at the time. I think my aunt heard me screaming because she came to save me.”

He scratches his head. “She has a speed semblance, like Ruby. But she can only use it in short bursts. Anyway, she came to save me and fought off the Grimm, but without her semblance I would’ve died, I think.”

The farmhand turns away from Ren, who is listening silently. “That’s the reason I wear bandages around my neck. I have scars.”

Ren is quiet for a few beats. “And is there a similar reason for your gloves?”

Oscar lets out a small sigh. "I mean... well, that's... a story for another time. I don't want to talk about it.”

Ren nods in understanding. “Okay. I… I appreciate you telling me that story. Why, though?”

Oscar meets Ren’s eyes and shrugs. “I’m not sure. I felt like you should know, and I guess i just wanted to show you that… well, that whatever happens when I run off is my own fault. It’s not yours, and it’s not anyone else’s.”

Smiling just a bit, a tiny shadow of a smile, Ren replies. “Yeah, okay. Thank you. I just…” He looks over at Oscar, looking much older than he is. “I don’t want to end up like my family. And I don’t want my new family to end up like my old one. Do you know what I mean?”

The farmhand’s eyes widen. He gives a little nod, but is still confused. 

“I used to live in a village, but it got attacked by some powerful grimm when I was little. That’s how I unlocked my semblance. I used it to get Nora and I out of there.” Ren falls silent. 

“I’m sorry that happened to you,” Oscar tells him. “Losing people that you care about is.…” Oscar squeezes his eyes shut, blocking out the memories. “Horrible.”

Ren nods slightly. “Yeah. I’m sure that you know this, but… we used to have another teammate.”

Oscar nods, ignoring the pang of sadness in his chest and guilt that isn’t his own, and the memories of a red-haired girl in golden armor. He knows who Ren is talking about.

Ren licks his lips, appearing to have trouble continuing. “Her name was Pyrrha. She was sweet, and talented, and so helpful with everything. She was... wonderful.”

Oscar tears his gaze away from Ren. His lap is incredibly interesting for some reason. 

“And I got her killed and then replaced her. I’m s-”

The black-haired warrior doesn’t let him apologize. “No, Oscar, that’s not what I’m trying to say. You didn’t kill her. And you didn’t replace her either. You came into our lives and we love you, but…”

Oscar finishes. “She’s irreplaceable.”

Ren nods. He’s already spoken much more than he usually does. 

“I wish I could’ve met her,” Oscar thinks aloud.

Ren finally, truly smiles. “She would’ve loved you. I think that, wherever she is, she does love you. She’s watching over us, I know she is.”

Oscar grins. “Yeah, that seems about right. Think she’d be mad at Ironwood?”

Ren raises an eyebrow, slightly confused. “What for?”

Oscar blinks, then scratches the back of his head with that same, sheepish, slightly guilty smile from before adorning his face. “I, uh, might have forgotten to mention what happened to me after I ran away.”

“Oscar…”

The hazel-eyed boy raises his hands in defense. “Okay, okay! Ironwood… uhm, he, uh, kind of… shot me off of Atlas?”

The reply that follows can probably be heard for miles around. 

**“HE DID WHAT?!”**

The rest of the team bursts in. “What’s wrong?” Weiss shouts, readying Myrtenaster.

Ren stands up quickly, all his former aggression towards his friends redirected onto a much, much better target. “Oscar just informed me of how he got down into Mantle.”

14 eyeballs turn to Oscar. He swallows. “Um. General Ironwood kinda… shot me. Off of a cliff. Off of Atlas actually. It kind of… uh… wasn’t fun?”   
  


There’s a moment of silence. Ruby turns to the team, her eyes cold. “Get your weapons ready. We leave at dawn.”

Weiss makes a “hm” noise and follows after her leader elegantly. Blake nods approvingly and sits down on the bed next to Oscar’s to examine her weapon with terrifying care. 

Oscar watches as Nora and Yang share a look, nodding slowly to each other. Nora sits down next to Oscar and puts her arm around him. He snuggles into her embrace, glad that he has people who care about him. 

In front of the door, Yang stretches. Suddenly, Oscar realizes how tired he is. He begins to drift off, and just before he falls into the clutches of sleep he hears Yang’s voice: 

“I’M GONNA KILL THAT MOTHERFU-”

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! we've got less than a week until v8 starts airing, which is exciting! feedback is always appreciated. [You can find me on twitter @ sapphicscarlett](https://twitter.com/sapphicscarlett) or my [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.qa/sapphicscarlett)


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